Title

Department

Authors

Document Type

Thesis

Abstract

Casualty of Home is a novel-in-stories focusing largely on the displacement felt due to situation or family. Often, members of a family have trouble making connections with each other, for each has its own thoughts, desires and expectations. Still, they have something rudimentary in common: blood. Because they are related, family members are inclined to care for individuals they might not even know, much less love. Spanning three generations, the characters in Casualty of Home deal with the constraints of family, the pressures of adolescence, and the limitations of the rural Southern culture in which they live. The characters face obstacles that force them to question their relationships to one another and their concept of self. These stories are inspired by the ones of my family— the characters draw upon the strongest attributes of my own relatives and their stories. By doing this, I hope to comment on the strength with which it sometimes takes to get through a day and how, sometimes, rebelling against circumstances can be done with just a word.